Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (116 page)

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Authors: Henry James

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Page 692
Then what can we do? How can we interfere? my companion went on.
That's what I want you to tell me. It's a woman's businessthat's why I've tumbled in on you here. You must invent something, you must attempt something.
My dear friend, what on earth do I care for Mr. Wilmerding?
You ought to carehe's a knight of romance. Do it for me, then.
Oh, for you! my hostess laughed.
Don't you pity medoesn't my situation appeal to you?
Not a bit! It's grotesque.
That's because you don't know.
What is it I don't know?
Why, in the first place, what a particularly shabby thing it was to play such a trick on Wilmerdinga gentleman and a man that never injured a fly; and, in the second place, how miserable he'll be and how little comfort he'll have with Veronica.
What's the matter with Veronicais she so bad?
You know them allone doesn't want to marry them. Fancy putting oneself deliberately under Mrs. Goldie's heel! The great matter with Veronica is that, left to himself, he would never have dreamed of her. That's enough.
You say he hasn't a fault, Mrs. Rushbrook replied. But isn't it rather a fault that he's such a booby?
I don't know whether it's because I'm rather exalted, rather morbid, in my reaction against my momentary levity, that he strikes me as so far from being a booby that I really think what he has engaged to do is very fine. If without intending it, and in ignorance of the social perspective of a country not his own, he has appeared to go so far that they have had a right to expect he would go further, he's willing to pay the penalty. Poor fellow, he pays for all of us.
Surely he's very meek, said Mrs. Rushbrook. He's what you call a muff.
Que voulez-vous?
He's simplehe's generous.
I see what you meanI like that.
You would like him if you knew him. He has acted like a gallant gentlemanfrom a sense of duty.
 
Page 693
It
is
rather fine, Mrs. Rushbrook murmured.
He's too good for Veronica, I continued.
And you want me to tell her so?
Well, something of that sort. I want you to arrange it.
I'm much obligedthat's a fine large order! my companion laughed.
Go and see Mrs. Goldie, intercede with her, entreat her to let him go, tell her that they really oughtn't to take advantage of a momentary aberration, an extravagance of magnanimity.
Don't you think it's
your
place to do all that?
Do you imagine it would do any goodthat they would release him? I demanded.
How can I tell? You could try. Is Veronica very fond of him? Mrs. Rushbrook pursued.
I don't think any of them can really be very fond of any one who isn't smart. They want certain things that don't belong to Wilmerding at allto his nationality or his type. He isn't at all smart, in their sense.
Oh yes,
their
sense: I know it. It's not a nice sense! Mrs. Rushbrook exclaimed, with a critical sigh.
At the same time Veronica is dying to be married, and they are delighted with his money. It makes up for deficiencies, I explained.
And is there so much of it?
Lots and lots. I know by the way he lives.
An American, you say? One doesn't know Americans.
How do you mean, one doesn't know them?
They're vague to me. One doesn't meet many.
More's the pity, if they're all like Wilmerding. But they can't be. You must know himI'm sure you'll like him.
He comes back to me; I see his face now, said Mrs. Rushbrook. Isn't he rather good-looking?
Well enough; but I'll say he's another Antinous if it will interest you for him.
What I don't understand is
your
responsibility, my friend remarked after a moment. If he insists and persists, how is it your fault?
Oh, it all comes back to that. I put it into his headI
 
Page 694
perverted his mind. I started him on the fatal courseI administered the primary push.
Why can't you confess your misdemeanour to him, then?
I
have
confessedthat is, almost. I attenuated, I retracted, when I saw how seriously he took it; I did what I could to pull him back. I rode after him to-day and almost killed my horse. But it was no usehe had moved so abominably fast.
How fast do you mean?
I mean that he had proposed to Veronica a few hours after I first spoke to him. He couldn't bear it a moment longerI mean the construction of his behaviour as shabby.
He
is
rather a knight! murmured Mrs. Rushbrook.
Il est impayable,
as Montaut says. Montaut practiced upon him without scruple. I really think it was Montaut who settled him.
Have you told him, then, it was a trick? my hostess demanded.
I hesitated. No, not quite that.
Are you afraid he'll cut your throat?
Not in the least. I would give him my throat if it would do any good. But he would cut it and then cut his own. I mean he'd still marry the girl.
Perhaps he
does
love her, Mrs. Rushbrook suggested.
I wish I could think it!
She was silent a moment; then she asked: Does he love some one else?
Not that I know of.
Well then, said Mrs. Rushbrook, the only thing for you to do, that I can see, is to take her off his hands.
To take Veronica off?
That would be the only real reparation. Go to Mrs. Goldie to-morrow and tell her your little story. Say: I want to prevent the marriage, and I've thought of the most effective thing. If
I
will take her, she will let him go, won't she? Therefore consider that I
will
take her.
I would almost do that; I have really thought of it, I answered. But Veronica wouldn't take
me.
How do you know? It's your duty to try.
I've no money.
No, but you're smart. And then you're charming.
 
Page 695
Ah, you're cruelyou're not so sorry for me as I should like! I returned.
I thought that what you wanted was that I should be sorry for Mr. Wilmerding. You must bring him to see me, said Mrs. Rushbrook.
And do you care so little about me that you could be witness of my marrying another woman? I enjoy the way you speak of it! I cried.
Wouldn't it all be for your honour? That's what I care about, she laughed.
I'll bring Wilmerding to see you to-morrow:
he'll
make you serious, I declared.
Do; I shall be delighted to see him. But go to Mrs. Goldie, tooit
is
your duty.
Why mine only? Why shouldn't Montaut marry her?
You forget that he has no compunction.
And is that the only thing you can recommend?
I'll think it overI'll tell you to-morrow, Mrs. Rushbrook said. Meanwhile, I do like your Americanhe sounds so unusual. I remember her exclaiming further, before we separated: Your poor Wilmerdinghe
is
a knight! But for a diplomatistfancy!
It was agreed between us the next day that she should drive over to Frascati with me; and the vehicle which had transported me to Albano and remained the night at the hotel conveyed us, before noon, in the opposite sense, along the side of the hills and the loveliest road in the worldthrough the groves and gardens, past the monuments and ruins and the brown old villages with feudal and papal gateways that overhang the historic plain. If I begged Mrs. Rushbrook to accompany me there was always reason enough for that in the extreme charm of her society. The day moreover was lovely, and a drive in those regions was always a drive. Besides, I still attached the idea of counsel and aid to Mrs. Rushbrook's presence, in spite of her not having as yet, in regard to my difficulty, any acceptable remedy to propose. She had told me she would try to think of something, and she now assured me she had tried, but the happy idea that would put everything right had not descended upon her. The most she could say was that probably the marriage wouldn't really take place. There was
 
Page 696
time for accidents; I should get off with my fright; the girl would see how little poor Wilmerding's heart was in it and wouldn't have the ferocity to drag him to the altar. I endeavoured to take that view, but through my magnifying spectacles I could only see Veronica as ferocious, and I remember saying to Mrs. Rushbrook, as we journeyed together: I wonder if they would take money.
Whose moneyyours?
Minewhat money have I? I mean poor Wilmerding's.
You can always ask themit's a possibility, my companion answered; from which I saw that she quite took for granted I would intercede with the Honourable Blanche. This was a formidable prospect, a meeting on such delicate ground, but I steeled myself to it in proportion as I seemed to perceive that Mrs. Rushbrook held it to be the least effort I could reputably make. I desired so to remain in her good graces that I was ready to do anything that would strike her as gallantI didn't want to be so much less of a knight than the wretched Wilmerding. What I most hoped forsecretly, however, clinging to the conception of a clever woman's tact as infinitewas that she would speak for me either to Mrs. Goldie or to Veronica herself. She had powers of manipulation and she would manipulate. It was true that she protested against any such expectation, declaring that intercession on her part would be in the worst possible taste and would moreover be attributed to the most absurd motives: how could I fail to embrace a truth so flagrant? If she was still supposed to be trying to think of something, it was something that
I
could do. Fortunately she didn't say again to me that the solution was that I should take over Veronica; for I could scarcely have endured that. You may ask why, if she had nothing to suggest and wished to be out of it, if above all she didn't wish, in general, to encourage me, she should have gone with me on this occasion to Frascati. I can only reply that that was her own affair, and I was so far from quarrelling with such a favour that as we rolled together along the avenues of ilex, in the exquisite Roman weather, I was almost happy.
I went straight to Mrs. Goldie's residence, as I should have
 
Page 697
gone to a duel, and it was agreed that Mrs. Rushbrook should drive on to the Villa Mondragone, where I would rejoin her after the imperfect vindication of my honour. The Villa Mondragoneyou probably remember its pompous, painted, faded extent and its magnificent terracewas open to the public, and any lover of old Rome was grateful for a pretext for strolling in its picturesque, neglected, enchanted grounds. It had been a resource for all of us at Frascati, but Mrs. Rushbrook had not seen so much of it as the rest of us, or as she desired.
I may as well say at once that I shall not attempt to make my encounter with the terrible dowager a vivid scene to you, for to this day I see it only through a blur of embarrassment and confusion, a muddle of difficulties suspended like a sort of enlarging veil before a monstrous Gorgon face. What I had to say to Mrs. Goldie was in truth neither easy nor pleasant, and my story was so abnormal a one that she may well have been excused for staring at me, with a stony refusal to comprehend, while I stammered it forth. I was even rather sorry for her, inasmuch as it was not the kind of appeal that she had reason to expect, and as her imagination had surely never before been led such a dance. I think it glimmered upon her at first, from my strange manner, that I had come to ask for one of the other girls; but that illusion cannot have lasted long. I have no idea of the order or succession of the remarks that we exchanged; I only recall that at a given moment Mrs. Goldie rose, in righteous wrath, to cast me out of her presence. Everything was a part of the general agitation; for the house had been startled by the sudden determination of its mistress to return to Rome. Of this she informed me as soon as I presented myself, and she apprised me in the same breath, you may be sure, of the important cause. Veronica's engagement had altered all their plans; she was to be married immediately, absence and delay being incompatible with dear Henry's official work (I winced at dear Henry), and they had no time to lose for conference with dressmakers and shopkeepers. Veronica had gone out for a walk with dear Henry; and the other girls, with one of the maids, had driven to Rome, at an early hour, to see about putting to rights the

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